Johannesburg, South Africa – COMESA, the East African Community, and SADC have brought together informal cross-border traders to discuss the Tripartite Simplified Trade Regime Framework. The consultative meeting, running from 24 to 25 November 2025, includes youth and women traders, cross-border trader associations, civil society organisations, and officials from the three regional blocs.
Participants are being guided on the STR Framework, including the use of key trade documents such as the Certificate of Origin and Customs Declaration, as well as the Common List of Eligible Products. The session also seeks input from youth and women traders on how the STR can be rolled out effectively.
The framework was designed to ensure that small-scale cross-border traders can access tariff preferences and engage more fully in regional trade, promoting simplicity, transparency, standardisation, and harmonisation of customs procedures. Without such measures, large-scale traders are typically the primary beneficiaries of preferential arrangements, leaving smaller traders, many of them women and youth, at a disadvantage.
The engagement with informal traders precedes a follow-up meeting from 27 to 28 November 2025, which will gather representatives from COMESA, EAC, and SADC secretariats and member states to discuss harmonisation of documentation, validation of the Common List of Eligible Products, and agreement on thresholds for trade.
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